It is known in the homemade beer (homebrew) market to utilize a specialized filler to transfer carbonated beer from a pressurized keg into a bottle for portability, gifts, entering into competitions, and the like. The alternative to filling from a keg is natural carbonation in the bottle; but this approach leaves undesirable yeast sediment in the bottom of each bottle. Simply pouring the beer into a bottle from a tap is possible, but too much carbonation is lost from foaming, leaving the beer flat. In addition, the presence of oxygen (O2) in the bottle during transfer causes staling of the beer, adversely affecting the flavor and shelf life. The common solution to this is a device called a counter-pressure bottle filler (CPBF), which is common in both the commercial bottling and homebrew industry.
A typical homebrew CPBF is a simplified manual version of the commercial equivalents intended for rapid sequential bottle filling. U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,740 (Yun), U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,835 (Copping), and U.S. Pat. No. 3,450,175 (Norwood) show several commercial high speed fillers. Numerous suppliers manufacture and sell these traditional CPBF fillers. Also, many homebrewers make their own fillers using commercially available materials. The typical process to fill a bottle utilizing a homebrew type CPBF requires a very cumbersome process of turning several valves in a prescribed sequence in order to purge the bottle of air, pressurize the bottle to the same pressure as the keg to reduce foaming and carbonation loss, turn on the beer flow valve, gradually open the CO2 relief valve to allow beer to flow, turn the beer valve off at the correct fill level, relieve the CO2 pressure in the bottle, remove the filler assembly, and lastly cap the bottle. If any operations are missed, performed incorrectly, or done in the incorrect order, the bottle could be too foamy (lost carbonation), not at the correct fill level, inadequately purged of air, or overfilled. The pressurization of the bottle is necessary to prevent foam creation (loss of carbonation) from a sudden pressure change, whereby the dissolved CO2 comes out of solution and creates foaming. This sudden pressure loss is due to the sharp turns from numerous fittings and elbows, in addition to the throttling nature of valves that would otherwise cause excessive foaming if the bottle were not pressurized prior to filling.
More recently, U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,912 (Blichmann), herein incorporated by reference, has shown improvement over previous bottle fillers. Additionally, current bottle fillers need tools to disassemble for cleaning and maintenance of the bottle filler. The grip of current bottle fillers utilizing metallic components have a tendency of getting cold from continuously filling multiple bottles. For some bottle fillers, the bottle filler comprises a trigger that rotates around a shaft, resulting in some challenge in griping the bottle filler securely to fill bottles. Furthermore, some bottle fillers include a rubber sealing member located at the distal or filling end that can also detach from the bottle filler altogether, resulting in a piece of rubber in the bottle that could pose a drinking hazard. Also, many other bottle fillers may develop a CO2 leak from the valve actuator of the CO2 valve, which is near the hand used to pull the trigger. This may result in condensation, unnecessary wasting of CO2, and inferior usability when operating the bottle filler itself.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to overcome these obstacles through improved functionality and design. The enhanced bottle filler assembly has improved on these various drawbacks to ensure easier, safer, and more reliable use in the filling of bottles and other containers.